African peace activist Leymah Roberta Gbowee,  a 2011 Nobel Prize laureate -- sharing the Peace Prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakul Karman of Yemen -- was responsible for organizing a peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. This led to Sirleaf's election as the first elected female president in Africa.

In 2001, Gbowee began organizing the women of Liberia and by 2002, the women joined together in an effort to stop the civil war which was tearing Liberia apart. Under Gbowee's leadership, they stood up to the violence and to the government. 

As Gbowee says, "Either way you die. You either stand up and die or you sit down and fold your hands and you still die. Fortunately we did not die."

The Peace Church Connection

• 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee is closely connected with the “peace-church tradition” of the Mennonites.
  Gbowee, who shares the prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and women’s rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, earned a master’s degree in conflict transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She attended CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2004 and completed its Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (known as “STAR”) program in 2005. Read more.
• Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) Alum Wins Nobel Peace Prize
  ... In June 2011 at EMU, Gbowee participated in a by-invitation conference on the needs of women peacebuilders around the world. Participants included filmmaker Abigail Disney of the United States, Koila Costello-Olsson of Fiji, Suraya Sadeed of Afghanistan, and Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, a Kenyan-Muslim woman of Somali ethnic origin who received the 2007 Right Livelihood Prize. (Abdi died in a car accident after returning to Kenya in July 2011.)
  “As a direct result of this conference, we will be launching a women and peacebuilding program at our 2012 Summer Peacebuilding Institute,” says Lynn Roth, executive director of EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.
  Gbowee is scheduled to be on EMU campus Oct. 14-16 to receive the university’s annual Alumna of the Year award as part of Homecoming and Family Weekend celebrations. Read more.

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

• Official press release of prize announcement
• Nobel interview:
  Q: May I ask what message you hope this prize sends to the world?
  Gbowee: That the other 50 percent of the world – the women of the world – that their skills, talents and intelligence should be utilized. And I think this message is a resounding agreement to all of our advocacies over the years. That truly women have a place, truly women have a face and truly the world has not been functioning well without the input, in every sphere, of women.
  "Leymah Gbowee - Interview". Nobelprize.org. 7 Oct 2011

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Read more about Gbowee and the women's movement that stopped a war.